BeeZee

An expression I'm fond of is "don't yuck on someone else's yum". As far as online reviews...buyer beware, since the internet has empowered everyone to believe they are a restaurant critic.

Last spring/summer I subscribed to a service so that my husband would have something healthy that he could just reheat before going to play softball on week nights - for those days that I didn't have leftovers from our weekend meals, since I work late and he needed to eat pretty early. It is quite expensive, indeed, with the built in cost of shipping and cold packs. We sampled around 8 meals (promotional package deal), IIRC, and the one issue I had was that the vegetables were always overcooked (as to be expected) and I would have liked more of them. There is a local restaurant that offers "chef prepared" meals that don't require a subscription and we can pick them up 10 minutes away, so I may try that as an alternative for him. He can't/won't cook for himself.

I was near a store after an appointment, so I popped in. There was a fair amount of refrig/frozen stuff I would have bought if it wasn't going to be sitting in the car for a while, so I wound up mostly buying dry goods and a package of fresh snow peas. Picked up a bag of Favorina chocolate covered marzipan Easter eggs (individually wrapped), there aren't too many places to get marzipan candy and I like it 1-2x a year. In the "bakery" area I bought a pizza roll, which wasn't that good when I tasted a bite cold, but when reheated at home in the toaster oven it was better (but not an item I'll buy again). Prices seemed like they weren't as low as in the past for a lot of items, many items were comparable to prices I had seen at the Supermarket recently.

Employee appreciation day (according to our Marketing dept.), so breakfast for the office. You know you are near Philadelphia when someone brings a bunch of soft pretzels to add to the spread.

I used to get a slice of white pizza with potato at a pizza place in Morristown. Don't knock it until you try it, it was delicious...they used (probably) Yukon gold potato, sliced very thin, and had roasted garlic, also. Ligurians eat pasta with potatoes and pesto, so it isn't so weird.

Generally the vegetarian meals are "OK" for my office freezer stock when desperate. I used to buy TJ's Indian fish korma, but it was discontinued. I do tend to "doctor" the meals with seasonings, since they are usually lacking, and try to buy products that are not crazy in the sodium level (which is difficult). There is a brand called Tattooed Chef, which may not be National in distribution, which has pretty some good vegan and vegetarian meals, I like the plant-based egg roll bowl. I hate the texture of the chicken that is used in the frozen meals nowadays.

desk lunch-leftover chopped Greek salad with some added (canned) tuna.

Aside from rising food costs, I've noticed a lot of packaging being changed to thinner/cheaper materials. Today, I pulled a plastic tub of whipped cream cheese out of the fridge, it was purchased this past weekend. Upon opening, I saw that the top of the plastic tub was cracked, apparently at some point it had been dropped. The plastic was very thin/brittle...and I've noticed bit by bit that other packaging materials have been downgraded (not talking about shrinkflation, another issue altogether). Obviously the packaging manufacturers are looking for ways to keep cost down/maintain profit levels.

well, the gift certainly has both the whimsical and the practical...

Fundamentally, those pieces of salmon get mushed when they are vacuum-packed, so most of them won't peel apart cleanly. I think I usually look for the cleanest/driest edge and try to slide a thin blade under to work a slice free. I think slightly tempered from fridge temp, since that lets the oil/fat be less congealed/sticky (sounds appetizing, huh? but IDK how else to describe). If the fish is too warm, it gets softer, so it's a fine line.

Shoprite had some Icelandic Haddock on special, they said "never frozen", but regardless it was very good (unlike some of the very sad/not fresh fish I saw there) - sweet and moist. I roasted it with some Panko crumbs on top to add a little crispy texture.

I was cleaning out a cabinet a while back, and found that a tube of chipotle paste had sprung a leak. The surprising thing was it happened so long ago, the goo had completely solidified and I was able to just chip it off the shelf and just had to clean a little residue with hot water. During the pandemic “lockdown” I got better at rotating things so the cabinets didn’t become like archeological digs.

Early lunch since I was near a pretty good local deli, the Kibitz Room. Bagel with whitefish salad, half sour pickle. I take the two halves apart and eat them open faced.

This is not, strictly speaking, about cooking...but rather about storage of an ingredient. I was given a gift of homemade herb vinegar. It is in a really large glass bottle, fresh (now pickled) herbs suspended in the vinegar. The bottle has a cork with some wax sealing it. I want to decant it into smaller containers. I plan to strain out those herbs. Additionally, as the vinegar had vegetation in it, is it better to store in the fridge once opened (as it isn't unadulterated vinegar)?

Disrespectful is a great word. How is it with half the world talking about inflation/food prices, the other half are finding ways to be wasteful (I am no fan of butter or any other “boards” which smear copius amounts of spreads on wood planks, either).

No photo, because beige sludge isn't too visually appealing...but I had some really tasty overnight oats made with Bob's Red Mill 5 grain hot cereal, chia seeds, peanut butter powder, milk, cinnamon, and a few dried goji berries. Bob's cereal is great for keeping it's chew, I had been buying TJ's multigrain hot cereal but they either discontinued it or it has been out of stock for months.

Bought white chocolate gingerbread bark (clearance rack at Whole Foods). I like white chocolate (as a confection) but the fail on these was they had a dusting of the gingerbread crumbs. Literally crumbs...it could have been really good if they had little pieces of cookies mixed into the bark, the gingerbread dust was nicely spiced. I missed out on a lot of holiday treats this year so I was hoping this would fill a niche.

My husband requested roast beef, cooked it today and have two more dinners leftover for him. He prefers his beef not too rare, he was happy with this. We had baked yams and steamed broccolini (I had some vegan meatballs).

Sort of minestrone, mostly vegetarian except I used a small amount of anchovy paste for salt/umami. Didn’t have kale, so I used frozen chopped spinach for the leafy green.

Our HQ office always has a big green tin of Goya soda crackers in the kitchen. Jar of pb on the counter, as well. More than once I have made that my lunch while working there for the day.

That time of the year, cookies and sweets being delivered to the office for the Holidays. I've eaten a couple of cookies already, and one soft caramel (very carefully, since I have a habit of pulling my crowns out) and it's only 10:30 a.m....😬

We had friends over for dinner last night, endive salad with pomelo segments, olives, and mustard viniagrette, vegetable lasagne (Barilla no-boil noodles, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini) and locally baked semolina bread. They brought dessert, cheesecake from Termini Brothers in Philadelphia, which was outstanding.

I know I checked the date on the bagged baby spinach before buying (nothing like a bag of green slime) but the tomatoes had no date, unfortunately. The culprits are some split/mashed/otherwise damaged ones at the bottom of the box. No big loss, they were tasteless, anyhow (despite looking suitably red). The remainder will probably go into soup.

Picked up 3 persimmons at 79 cents each, they need to ripen a bit. I hesitate to buy produce at TJ’s, the large carton of grape tomatoes had several on the bottom that were already moldy. Not worth returning.

Too much meat the past couple of days, I needed something lighter. Quick soup with pantry ingredients - boxed stock with asian flavors, baked tofu, rice noodles, seaweed, carrots, roasted broccoli florets. DH enjoyed it also.